Every year several thousand people drown worldwide. These deaths are in many instances the result of exhaustion, dehydration, and hypothermia induced loss of coordination and consciousness which results in drowning. In other instances where survival is not affected by lower temperatures, the task of locating, assisting, and otherwise recovering persons in peril from an aqueous environment can be compounded by inclement weather, and environmental obstacles like fire, ice, or smoke which make approach to a potential drowning victim perilous to the life of the rescuer.
These issues are further compounded by existing rescue methodology which employs the use of humans to effect recovery of an individual either by swimming to a person in peril, or depending on the person in peril to swim to the rescue platform. All too often the person in peril has neither the strength or the coordination to swim to an air deployed life raft, or a rescue basket lowered from a helicopter, or ship. Therefore, current methodology is not always effective as the rescue swimmer cannot be jeopardized in potentially lethal ocean conditions which could result in the loss of his own life.
Existing helicopter extraction and recovery systems are human dependent and pose a serious risk to the life of the crew and/or rescue swimmer in rough seas, high winds, fire, toxic fumes, poor visibility, or hostile weapons fire in military situations which could affect the safety of the entire helicopter crew. An example of such a system is taught in Pelas U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,998 that teaches a scoop-like net positioned below a helicopter. The Pelas invention may be effective in relatively calm seas and otherwise safe flying conditions, but it could not be used in rough seas or in the vicinity of toxic fumes, fire, high winds, or weapons fire without extreme danger to the victim and rescue crew.
A second area central to existing water based rescue methodology depends on fixed wing air transport to drop life rafts and supplies to persons to be rescued. Although the initial response time and delivery capability of search and rescue (SAR) based patrol aircraft have reached efficient levels of service, the aircraft are still hindered by a lack of targeting, precision deployment, and mobility control over the survival packages they deploy. Often the dropped life rafts, once inflated, simply get blown away in high winds, thereby becoming out of reach of the drowning persons.
Various other shortcomings of marine rescue systems exist in the areas of deployment of the rescue craft, and detection and targeting of the victims. For example, existing air deployment systems are not compatible with externally mounted aircraft and helicopter bomb racks that would make air deployment efficient. As well, existing air, land, and sea deployed rescue systems do not posses an accurate targeting system to direct a self-propelled liferaft or self propelled lifeboat package to a shipwreck survivor or other person to be rescued. Where ship and oil rig deployed self propelled lifeboats are used, they are neither semi or fully autonomous, possessing the capability to use sensors and artificial intelligence to assist in locating persons in peril. Existing life rafts and self propelled lifeboats do not possess a self homing GPS capability to guide them to safe haven to facilitate occupant removal. Existing life rafts do not have the capability to use real-time two way video, audio, informational data, search communications, and telemetry systems to administer direct remote control capability over the liferaft's or lifeboat's activities. Existing life rafts and lifeboats do not possess an autonomous self preservation collision and obstacle avoidance system utilizing radar, audio, and sonar based proximity warning sensor devices.
Even if a life raft or life boat successfully reaches the person or persons to be rescued, an additional problem is encountered in getting the victims into the raft or boat. Existing life rafts, lifeboats, and rescue systems do not possess a robotic recovery assistance capability to extract individuals suffering extreme loss of physical strength or motor coordination caused by fatigue or hypothermia.
Various other hazards exist for the life raft or boat itself. Existing life rafts and lifeboats, for example, are not fireproof, making them extremely dangerous for use in the vicinity of burning vessels or equipment. For example, the recent British Trent disaster off Belgium was a ship collision in which the crew members burned to death because rescue could not be effected because life rafts could not traverse through burning oil surrounding the ship. Existing life rafts, due to a lack of propulsive directional control, can be unstable in rough seas due to an inability to steer themselves into or away from the wind in order to accommodate high sea states which threaten to swamp or capsize the liferaft. Once capsized, existing liferaft systems also lack an automated self-righting system.
In the event of a successful rescue, there is the additional problem of sustaining the victims until further assistance can be provided. Under the limitations of current air sea or land deployed liferaft survival packages, shipwreck victims frequently die because basic requirements for survival and recovery are not met. For example, existing air deployed life rafts do not possess life raft generated heat, and desalinated water for life support. Existing life rafts do not have the capability to use real-time two way video, audio, or informational data communication systems to administer two way medical advice, and remote control capability. Neither do existing life rafts incorporate a means to monitor the vital physical signs of the occupants.
There is a continuing unaddressed need for a life raft survival package to be used in search and rescue applications that can be deployed by air, land or sea to marine victims with means to specifically detect, target, manipulate, monitor, and communicate with the victims and the life raft survival package. The life raft survival package must have a degree of autonomy in all weather and be able to operate in zero visibility conditions. Once the victims are rescued, such a life raft survival package must provide for the continued survival of the victims by providing heat if necessary, drinkable water, food and other provisions, real-time two-way communication and remote control capability.